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Tuesday, September 11, 2012

What Blogging Taught Me about Writing

We’re coming up on my second blogging anniversary, so I’m feeling all reflective. So much has happened over the past two years...so many words written, so many posts typed...

The first few years I worked earnestly on my writing, I wasn’t very good. Worse, I was completely ignorant of that fact. I thought when you wrote a book, it was EASY to get it published. You put the words down on a page and then people would jump all over it to read it. Oh, sure, there was some editing involved. Move a few chapters around. Edit some character development. Proofread of course. But not that much work. Maybe another month.

I’ll pause for a moment so you can all laugh at that.

Sad, right? I hadn’t done much research into the publishing process, so I didn’t realize…well, anything. I didn’t know how it worked except in a vague way. I had no idea about predatory “publishers”, or the debates about getting an agent and indie-versus-traditional publishing, or the vast amount of work authors put in to change a manuscript from “work in progress” to “work completed”. “Down on the page” is not the end, it’s the beginning.

When I first dipped a toe into the waters of social media, it was via twitter. By that time I bookmarked the pagesof a fewagents (plusa fewmore) and they talked a lot about getting involved with other writers and readers, an idea that never occurred to me. It turns out, that was probably the best thing to ever happen to my writing.

So many blogs! About books, about reading, about publishing, about writing. I learned about the all-important hook. Pitch writing, synopses, genres, and the importance of each and every single word. And I’m still learning.

I guess I should say thank you. You guys are awesome and I’m glad I follow your blogs (even if I’m bad about commenting sometimes). I’m sure I’m biased, but I think the writing/blogging community is the best out there and I can’t wait to read what you have to say.